You've heard of gold mining and coal mining, but think outside the box...or the planet...what about asteroid mining? Scientists, engineers, and business people believe asteroid mining is feasible, and they are in the beginning stages of long-term plans to mine asteroids for valuable resources during space missions. You don't want to miss out on all the fun; in this science project, you will come up with your own scientific plan for an asteroid mining company. We will help get you started by…
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While watching an ice hockey game, have you ever wondered what differentiates a good player from a great player? For sure, the great player is athletically superior to the good player. But maybe it is a combination of athleticism and equipment. Maybe a great player knows which hockey stick is best for him or her. Hockey players can choose to play with hockey sticks with different flexibilities or "flex." In this science fair project, investigate how stick flex affects shot accuracy and speed.…
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Sports_p049

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Time Required

Average (6-10 days)

Prerequisites

Access to an empty ice rink and knowledge of how to play ice hockey.

Material Availability

Specialty items required. You need access to an empty ice rink, hockey equipment and safety gear, a sports radar gun appropriate for hockey, and two volunteers who also have equipment and safety gear.

Have you ever watched an inexperienced video game player pick up a controller and start playing a game? Often the player bumbles around trying to figure out which button makes the onscreen character jump, run, turn left, or perform other actions. Some games are different though, they have control schemes that are more real-world based. Examples include Nintendo® WiiTM Tennis where you swing the Wii remote like a tennis racket and Activision's Guitar Hero® where you can play with a…
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Games_p022

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Time Required

Short (2-5 days)

Prerequisites

None

Material Availability

You should have access to a video game console or computer, and a video or computer game that requires both a regular control and a peripheral. See the Introduction for details.

Here's a sports science project that shows you how to use correlation analysis to choose the best batting statistic for predicting run-scoring ability. You'll learn how to use a spreadsheet to measure correlations between two variables.
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Sports_p003

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Time Required

Short (2-5 days)

Prerequisites

To do this project you must be comfortable using a spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel®, or be willing to learn how to use one.

No matter what your favorite card game is, we all wish we could use psychic powers to draw the card we want on our turn. You may not have psychic powers, but you might have the power of probability on your side. In this science project, you will discover how math can help you avoid the words, "Go fish!"
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This is a great project for someone interested in both stargazing and photography. Bright city lights and even the light of the full Moon obscure the dimmest stars, which can make identifying constellations more difficult. In this astronomy science project, you will calibrate a digital camera to measure the skyglow in different locations. This can be a great tool to comparing the quality of different star viewing locations.
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Astro_p022

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Time Required

Long (2-4 weeks)

Prerequisites

You should have already taken an algebra class and understand what a function is.

Material Availability

A digital camera with full manual control is essential for this project. If you cannot manually control the ISO, shutter speed, focus, and lens aperture of your camera, then your camera will not work for this project. See the Materials and Equipment list for details.

The Game of Life is the invention of the mathematician John Conway. It is a cellular automaton, consisting of a grid of squares that turn "on" or "off" depending on simple mathematical rules that involve neighboring squares. Depending on how the grid is first set up (i.e., the initial conditions), various interesting patterns appear. Can you write a Game of Life program (in JavaScript or any other computer language of your choice)? Can you think of ways to alter the rules that result in…
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What does the phrase, "Like a breath of fresh air," mean to you? This common phrase can have different meanings: calming, relaxing, invigorating, energizing or CLEAN! After all, you never hear anyone say, "Like a breath of dirty air," do you? Find out how clean the air is in this simple experiment.
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EnvSci_p009

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Time Required

Average (6-10 days)

Prerequisites

None

Material Availability

Readily available

Cost

Very Low (under $20)

Safety

Use caution and have parents with you at test sites with automobile traffic nearby.

Does your skin get dry? Or do you know someone with dry skin? Dry skin can be a real medical problem for some people. You may have seen many kinds of lotions, creams, and ointments advertised as restorative for dry skin, especially dry hands. But how well do they work? And which ingredients are most important in making them work? In this science project, you will create a model of human skin using JELL-O® and test how well skin moisturizing products with different ingredients keep the…
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BioMed_p015

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Time Required

Long (2-4 weeks)

Prerequisites

None

Material Availability

You will need to purchase petri dishes online. See the Materials and Equipment list for details.

Here's a project where you can try your hand at being a detective with your computer. In this project you'll write a program to do some basic analysis of features of written text (for example, counting the length of each word in the text, or the number of words in each sentence). Then you'll see if you can use the information from your text analysis program to find measurements that can distinguish one author from another. After analyzing known samples of several authors' writings, can your…
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CompSci_p022

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- Less Details

Time Required

Long (2-4 weeks)

Prerequisites

An understanding of the material covered in "[# ProjectIdea Name="CompSci_p003" Value="HtmlAnchor" #]"

You can find this page online at: http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/search.shtml?v=solt&pi=Games_p014&p=2

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